What Ball Players do After Dark

This time its:"What Ball Players do After Dark"By Christopher Tompkins
EVERY once in a while one of those goofy
sports reporters comes up to me and asks
me what ball players do after the game. It’s
none of their business, and it’s none of yours,
either. But I’m here to tell you what happened to
me and three other players in Chinatown one night.
I’m Mike Carnochan, third baseman of the big
league Aldermen, and Jack McCloskey, Andy
Neighbors and Ned Gabbler are my baseball
buddies. First, though, I want to tell you about
Lucile Hogan, the girl I wanted to sign up with me
in the old Matrimonial League. She kept stalling
me along.
“I—I might, Mike,” she would confess kind of
dubiously when I pressed her for an answer. “But I
guess I’ve got my share of Irish romance. I’d want
the man I married to be somebody, do something to
make him love me. He would have to be a hero.”
“Easy, kid,” I came right back at her, my face as
bright as soap and inspiration could make it. “Did
you hear about the time in the last World’s Series
when I bunted with the bases full and caught their
infield flat-footed?”
“Baseball’s just play.” She sort of clasped her
hands and looked up at a crack in the ceiling of the
Hogan flat. “I mean something big, something
serious. You’d have to face death with a smile of
contempt on your lips, drag me from a burning
building, catch me falling from an airplane. It
would be grand, Mike!”
That sort of slowed up the best third sacker in
the league, but I wouldn’t let her see it and turned it
into a joke.
“I’ll bet, Lucile, that if you ever are in peril, I’ll
be in St. Louis, playing a doubleheader!”
I know now that I ought to have grabbed her
roughly to my manly breast in a big caveman
scene—the romantic type of female is crazy about
that sort of stuff—but I was scared she would slap
my face. She was very sweet, and sorry about the
whole business, and I fell for her line like a sap.
UNLUCKY in love—the same in baseball, I
found. The Aldermen were having their
troubles getting started. They say the breaks always
follow a champion, but we were discovering that

bromide was pretty hard to swallow without
making a face. The champs did about everything
wrong. They could make four hits in an inning and
still not score a run. Perhaps it was dumb baseball.
Anyway, it began to get under our hide. Our
manager became as sore as a catching thumb.
“Scatter, boys,” he instructed, “and when you’ve
found this jinx, beat it to death with your clubs. I
want its pelt.” Lew Brady was Irish the same as me
and believed in the banshees that sit in the
bleachers. Only with the Aldermen it was a crosseyed
Chinaman.
That evening I called on Ah Fung for my
week’s wash, and we got to fanning about baseball,
the Chink in his pidgin English and me in my pure
American slang. Being kindred souls we got along
pretty well. Then, suddenly, I noticed he wasn’t
looking at me directly. He was cross-eyed. And
when he confessed that he was an Aldermen rooter
and came out to our home games without a miss, I
knew I’d run the hoodoo to earth.
Next day at the batting nets I told the boys about
my discovery. I’d already told the club secretary
and Manager Lew Brady, and the Chink had been
stopped at the turnstiles.
“Who ever heard of a Chinese fan anyway?” I
demanded. “He’s the cause of all our drives going
straight at the fielders. If you’ve noticed, we don’t
have such bad luck when we’re on the road. That’s
because Ah Fung sees just our home games. But
he’s never going to see another, not if I have to
stand at the gate and hack off his head as he tries to
enter the park!”
“How did you happen to get the lowdown on
him, anyway, Mike?” inquired Gabbler flippantly.
“I didn’t know you belonged to any of those
tongs.”
The club secretary reported that when Ah Fung
showed up with his Melican dollar and was denied
admission, he set up an awful jabber. But that
afternoon the score was 9 to 3 in our favor, and
everything we hit fell safe. I had the right dope all
right.
It was the next afternoon, when McCloskey
came up to me in the dressing room, grinning like
somebody had slit him from ear to ear with a
butcher knife.
“Seen the afternoon editions, Mike?” he
whispered mysteriously.
“Full of second guessing by the scribes, I
suppose,” says I, the cynic.
“Mike,” he went rambling, “you don’t
understand Chink nature like I do. Or you wouldn’t
joke about this. Do you happen to know that a mob
of indignant fans paid a flying visit to Ah Fung last
night and wrecked his laundry.”
“What was the idea, Jack?” I asked foolishly,
because I knew all the time.
“One of those smart feature writers got hold of
your story about Ah Fung being our cross-eyed
jinx. The crazy fans—and you know they’re dips in
this hick village—blamed him for our losing streak
and just decided to beat him up, run him out of
business. The papers were kidding, of course. But
you can’t kid an Aldermen rooter and get away
with it.”
WHAT does Ah Fung say; want the club to
pay for the damage?”
“Not exactly. He’s taken an oath on the tomb of
his ancestors to bury a hatchet in your skull. Of
course you shouldn’t be held responsible for the
actions of a gang of hoodlums. But he’s taken the
oath and won’t forget it for a million years. Chinks
are like elephants. By that time you’ll be dead
anyway, Mike,” optimistically.
I didn’t scare much, and that evening I took a
stroll into Chinatown—I was brought up in the
nearby neighborhood and so was Lucile—to look
over the wreck. The plate glass window had been
boarded up where it was broken. Half the door
hung loose on its hinges. Inside a light flickered
palely. I guess customers’ collars and shirts had
been ripped to ribbons.
On the corner I passed a loitering group of
Chinks, their hands hidden in their baggy silk
sleeves to the elbow. Their little eyes stared at me
obliquely as I passed, and I thought I saw hate in
their inscrutable depths.
“Where’s Ah Fung,” I boldly questioned,
thinking I might do something for the poor devil.
“Allee samee payee for damlage.” Nobody
answered.
I didn’t care particularly about being
tomahawked, and before I left the quarter I set a
spy upon my enemy. This was Poppy Sam, a
gangling snifer who had been our rubber before he
took to the snow diet. I slipped a bill into his
twitching, clutching fingers that were continually
fumbling at his mouth.
“That’s for watching Ah Fung,” I said. “If any
Chink secret society aims to prong me in my sleep
with a jeweled dagger, I’d like to know about it
beforehand so I’ll stay awake.”
Poppy knew better than to be seen there fanning
with me, and he disappeared like a shadow. About
as fast as my Christian legs would propel me I got
out of Chinatown. The place gave me the creeps. I
would hear the rustle of silk behind me, but when I
whirled around there would be nobody in sight but
a bobbing storekeeper who wanted me to look at
his jade.
Who should I stumble across but Lucile Hogan,
out for an airing. It gave me a twinge to meet that
doll.
“You’ve been avoiding me lately, Mike,” she
accused me openly. “What have I done that you
won’t notice your old friends any more?”
“I’m happier if I don’t see you,” I retorted, still
sore at that hero worship nonsense that was keeping
us from happiness.
“And you want me to pin a medal on you for
heroism for stopping this once?” she mocked
without batting an eye. But I guess skirts like being
cruel like that.
GOT pretty stiff action for my dollar the very
next day at the ball game. Poppy Sam was back
of our dugout, signaling he wanted to see me. I
beckoned him down to an empty field box between
innings. Poppy wiped those jerky fingers weakly
across his mouth.
“Boss,” he jerked forth from slack lips, “they
got her.”
“Who got who, Sam? Steady!”
“Ah Fung’s tong have your girl, Lucile Hogan,”
he said. “Fung saw you keeping company with her
last night, the same as I seen you. The old serpent’s
striking at you through the jane, Mike.”
“Where—where is she now, Sam?” I demanded,
a bit thick in my speech.
Poppy Sam grew sullen.
“Quit pinching my arm, can’t you?” he whined,
tugging to break my convulsive grip. “Leave me
tell it in my own way. I was spying around
Nicholson Street when she went past, flushed like,
and smiling to herself. I seen her turn in at the
Mandarin restaurant for rice cakes. I hid in a
doorway until she come out. Below me I heard a
door squeak open at the foot of some steps leading
down. In Chinee town, boss, most everything leads
down.”
“Yes, yes!” I cried sharply, clammy with icy
dread. “But never mind that now, Sam. Lucile—
what happened to Lucile? Where is she, man?”
“Mike, I swear I seen a long yellow arm reach
clear up to the sidewalk,” Poppy Sam resumed,
gulping and shivering convulsively for lack of his
dope. “The skinny arm held a little Chink baby. It
dropped it at the head of the stairs—the decoy. The
baby’s cry would reach Lucile Hogan’s heart like.
She would stoop down to comfort it—and—and—
Mike, I done my best to warn her off by signs. But
she was too busy picking up the little stool pigeon
and mothering it.
“The next minute I covered my eyes with my
hands. Ah Fung’s tong had her.”
The crowd was up and roaring at the winning
three-base hit from Sid Nesbit’s bat, but all I could
bear was Poppy Sam’s sibilant voice, whispering in
my ear. “I heard her scream once. But when I
looked she was gone. Ah Gawd!”
Poppy Sam jerked the rest of it out, while I tried
not to crack up myself.
“Soon as I quieted I came right out here, boss,
to see what you wanted to do. I could take you to
the very place where she was kidnapped. I marked
the railing with chalk so I’d know it again.”
I told him to wait for me after the game in a taxi
at the players’ entrance, where I would meet him
with some friends.
Those last innings were a nightmare. Feverishly
I ran down McCloskey, Neighbors and Gabbler,
and I was so incoherent it must have taken me half
an hour to spill the story. There was no time for a
shower, and I dressed with the dirt on me.
“We could call in the police department,” I
chattered in conclusion. “But the bulls wouldn’t let
me rough-house Mr. Ah Fung right. They would
want to rubber hose him themselves. And he’s my
meat, boys.”
They agreed with me, and before we left we
armed ourselves with some sawed-off old bats, a
handy, silent weapon that we hid under our
raincoats, the day being showery. Poppy Sam was
flattened up against the fence, and we hustled him
into our taxi. Not much was said on the ride
downtown. I was busy thinking of Lucile, and my
buddies were thinking of their sisters.
AT Nicholson Street we foamed out of the cab.
The railing where the trap had been sprung
was in plain sight under Sam’s shakingly pointing
finger. The whole Chinese population of the city

seemed to be pattering noiselessly past on their felt
soles. I was for rushing the joint and taking a
potshot at every shaved skull. I didn’t even think it
would be funny to pull off pigtails.
“Let’s go!” said the equally impatient Gabbler.
Ned couldn’t even wait for a base on balls on the
ball field.
But Poppy Sam was brimming with secret
knowledge that made frontal attack inadvisable.
“That ain’t the way to beat a Chink, boss,” Sam
said. “This door leads to Foy Yang’s hop house.
But it’s just his getaway in case the cops batter
down his doors. The entrance is on the next street.
If you go prancing in the wrong door, Ah Fung and
his mob will fade like joss smoke. All you’ll find
will be empty rooms, recently occupied, and—
maybe a torn bit of your girl’s dress.”
McCloskey and Neighbors each grabbed me by
an arm. I fought like a bull, but in the end I listened
to reason, and we went deploying around into
Benedict Street. No good in tipping our signals.
Poppy’s plan was to pose as a party of sightseers he
was guiding.
“But what about Ah Fung?” I objected. “He’ll
recognize us, me anyway.”
Poppy Sam explained that Foy Yang’s outer
room was just fixed up for gullible visitors. A few
props lay around in messy bunks, faking opium
stupor. Nobody would bother us. We would have to
fight our way behind a red curtain if we wanted to
reach Lucile. Besides Ah Fung wouldn’t have any
objection to our entering his web. He would object
to letting us out
Tonight I was going behind that red curtain, and
all China’s billions couldn’t stop my tearing it from
its fastenings. I’m built close to the carpet and I
kept out of sight behind the others, just in case we
stumbled upon Ah Fung snooping around. Foy
Yang had rigged up his show place with tables and
tall paper screens.
Yang himself came meekly forward. Poppy Sam
winked, pointed to us, sucked in his cheeks and
rolled his eyes dreamily. The Chink proprietor
bobbed and beamed, nodding until the little button
danced.
“Melican ball players,” he startled us by saying
brightly, and was hugely pleased with himself.
It was too late to quit now. Foy Yang left as
noiselessly as a cat and just about as trustworthy. It
was Poppy who led us through a maze of cleverly
placed screens, and the next minute we were
among the smokers. On a richly lacquered low
table a lamp burned sluggishly with a sickening
smell. The rest of the room was sordid, with its
sprawling, property figures.
A stunted girl, no bigger than a wax doll,
offered me a pipe.
“No smokee,” I said shortly, staring around until
I spotted the red curtain. “Whach um.”
POPPY SAM was watching me furtively. At the
first blow I realized he would scuttle for
safety. The soft, tiny pills had made a quaking
coward of him. The sweet smell was oozing into
my own brain, and I was all for quick action. The
red curtain was across the room, really dividing one
big room in half. As I looked, it swayed as if
brushed by unseen bodies. I thought I heard a groan
that ended in a faraway, gurgling sob of sound. The
curtain was motionless.
I knew my Aldermen, good blokes on a ball
field and good at a rough and tumble against any
odds. I remembered things about them—Ned
Gabbler thrashing six cops in Chicago and yanking
the helmet of the seventh down over his ears,
McCloskey going joyously into the stands after a
gang who were riding him when he knew they were
desperate gunmen, Neighbors battling his way to
our dressing room through an angry team, waiting
with bats.
Impetuously I started forward, my fingernails
biting savagely into the bat handle under my coat. I
heard my volunteers forming in my rear, solidly.
But before I had advanced a step, there was Foy
Yang coming right up out of the floor and blocking
progress.
“No go there, if you please,” he lisped, all
smirking apology. “Plivate office.”
I made a grab for his pigtail and nearly hauled it
out by the roots. The mask was off when he
screeched an imprecation and made a pass at me
with a glittering knife he flashed from his sleeve.
The patter of feet sounded; yellow, jaundiced faces
closed in evilly from all sides. More long slender
dirks gleamed evilly in the flare from the lanterns
and hatchets, too. Those quiet sleepers in the bunks
rose like the dead on Judgment Day.
“Aldermen this way!” I bellowed, wading into
the thick of that ghostly, rustling swarm. “Down
with that curtain, fellers! Let’s get a look at what’s
behind it!”
My bully boys came wading, good old Ned

Gabbler joyously in the van, eager to crack skulls
now that the kill was within sight. The whole
flimsy curtain came fluttering down on top of us at
the first jerk, winding treacherously around our
arms, so that we couldn’t swing our short and
deadly weapons. The yellow hirelings of Foy Yang
darted in to finish the white invaders with knife and
hatchet.
Yet somehow I tore free, and let the nearest
skull have it—crack. It sounded like ice, frozen too
tight, splitting wide-open. I hit again, and this time
it was like a ripe watermelon under my bat. I saw a
Chink go for McCloskey, his hatchet hand
swinging like one of the side-wheelers in our
league. My bat, red and sticky, broke his knuckles.
Other bats were sounding. I guess we all hit
1.000 for the next few minutes. We fought through
the doorway from which we had torn the red
curtain, Every light went out suddenly.
“Lucile!” I yelled into the dark beyond. “It’s
Mike—friends.”
HE attack had faded away into the
underground warrens of Chinatown.
McCloskey, Neighbors and Gabbler clustered
around me, listening. But all any of us heard was
the echo of my voice. We knew too well we
weren’t alone. Whispers, gutturals—then a white
girl’s piercing scream!
“Mike, Mike! They’re choking me! O—o—o—
oh! Ah!”
That strangling cry made a crazy man of me,
and I dashed forward blindly. I was flung violently
off my balance. The other Aldermen were in no
better plight. We all piled up on the floor, clawing,
swearing, bewildered. Those wily Chinks had
circled around us, winding our legs in a long sash
that was the curtain, and tripping us wholesale.
Again we had a battle on our hands. My clothes
ripped, and I realized I’d escaped a death wound by
inches. I floundered to my feet, swaying and dizzy.
“Lucile!” I muttered huskily. “I’m still here,
Lucile—on my feet!”
Something soft, silky, was flung over my head,
stifling speech, halting breathing—a Chinaman’s
lousy blouse. I clawed at it, slit it and stuck my
head out through the hole.
Off in a corner Neighbors was still making
heathen heads ring. McCloskey’s batting average
wasn’t falling off any, and Gabbler hit nothing but
triples in the clutch.
It was every man for himself now. We were
waging separate warfare in the gloom. The
cutthroats were on their own grounds and would go
to bat last. I couldn’t see a sign of Poppy Sam;
probably legging it along Nicholson Street by now,
ghosts at his elbow. Either that, or hiding in one of
the bunks. But I did him an injustice.
I lurched in the direction in which I had last
heard Lucile’s agonized cry for help, and made
pretty bad weather of it. All the while, I had to keep
telling myself I was an American, and worth
twenty of these highbinders and hatchet men, to
keep from fainting. I wouldn’t say uncle.
My lolling head thumped against a wall, and I
crept along that support gratefully. Our hosts had
evidently mislaid me temporarily in the press of
other business. Suddenly the wall wasn’t there any
more, and I fell a-sprawl into another room. It was
an inner chamber, full of burning incense, divans,
screens—old Foy Yang’s private boudoir.
And then I could have blubbered for joy. There
was something I had been missing; something
vague, something that troubled me and made me
frown to remember. And suddenly I knew what it
was—Ah Fung, the instigator of the abduction of
my girl. I remembered, because I saw him,
struggling with the girl herself.
They had dressed Lucile in a green silk kimono.
She was frightened but biting and scratching like a
she-cat.
I let go of my baseball bat and went for my
laundryman with my naked hands. He saw me
coming, and let Lucile slide to the floor, reaching
up in his sleeve in what I had come to believe was
the national gesture of China. But I gave him no
chance to get set. I was on him before he could
draw and was pounding him, battering his soft,
ugly face into a shapeless mass of yellow pulp
streaked with red.
“Mike,” Lucile was wailing on the floor, hiding
her face, “I want to go home! Take me away from
here.”
The last blow I had in my system I used to
knock Ah Fung as cold as a herring, and staggered
to her side. Together we groveled there on the floor
of that hop house, my arms so weak they could
only fumble her, but her heart fluttered close to my
ribs, and I guess we were happy. Behind us I heard
a sudden clapping of hands—Ah Fung signaling for
help, the whole place spewed up with Chinks.
T
HERE wasn’t much resistance I could offer.
My baseball bat was gone, and I was so
weakened anyway, about all I could have done with
it would have been to hold it up in front of my face,
and try and keep them carving their initials on its
hardwood. I pawed at them, muttering my defiance
and love for Lucile. But they soon had me on my
haunches. The glint of their long daggers hurt my
eyes. Mistily, I realized that Lucile Hogan had
crept close to me to die, too.
Above me towered a giant in a blue blouse who
reached down to grip me by the collar to steady me
for the blow. His knife came slashing downward,
seeming to burst at my windpipe, I closed my
eyes—and that was the last I knew for hours. I
awoke to the clanging of the gong.
I was stretched on the floor of an ambulance.
On the rear cross seat was Lucile, chatting merrily
with the interne. Beyond I saw a parade of the
Chinese army, white turbaned, being marched into
the police vans. The dragnet had made a rich haul
of yellow gangsters. I attempted to sit up.
“What—what’s happened?” I gasped. “You all
right, girl? And where’s—where’s Jack and Andy
and Ned? The last thing I knew—I—I was being
knifed by a big bloke—” But the effort was too
much. I couldn’t go on with the difficult job of
talking.
“Everybody was saved,” said Miss Hogan, fresh
as any daisy. “That blue blouse you saw belonged
to a cop, Mike. I guess you mistook his department
badge for a knife, it gleamed so in that funny light.
A precious boy named Poppy Sam gave the alarm.”
I didn’t feel much like a hero, but Lucile kept
insisting that I was—just the dearest hero in all the
world, and it’s an easy thing to believe about
yourself. We were married as soon as my head
stopped spinning, and I could get Brady to give me
a morning off from morning practice. But first
there was a little scene at the hospital.
The three of us, the interne, Lucile and I, drove
up in grand style, bell clanging. At the door the
reporters were waiting for us. Some of the papers
had sent out their sports men on the story, because
of four members of the World’s Champions being
more or less involved in the fracas. I recognized
one of the most persistent of the pests.
“Hello, Ike,” I said as I hobbled up the steps.
“I’ve got that yarn for you about what ball players
do after they leave the ball park.
“I go to Chinatown!”
I was back in the dugout in a week and back in
the game in three more days. The Aldermen had
come out of the adventure with tons of publicity,
and we played to jammed stands even on weekdays
for a while. But there was one absentee—Ah Fung,
the cross-eyed laundryman. It would be a long
while before his pigtail would grow out in the big
house.
I guess I wasn’t wrong about him originally
when I spotted him as the jinx that was losing the
pennant for us. Since he quit putting the evil eye on
us, the Aldermen have resumed their old habits of
winning ball games. It looks like another big series
split for us, and I’m going to blow my share on a
honeymoon.

The Pit of the Serpent

Because you asked for it, Another Salor Steve story.
this time its "Pit of the Serpent" by Robert E. Howard

THE MINUTE I stepped ashore from the Sea Girl, merchantman, I had a hunch that there would be trouble. This hunch was caused by seeing some of the crew of the Dauntless. The men on the Dauntless have disliked the Sea Girl's crew ever since our skipper took their captain to a cleaning on the wharfs of Zanzibar--them being narrow-minded that way. They claimed that the old man had a knuckle-duster on his right, which is ridiculous and a dirty lie. He had it on his left.
Seeing these roughnecks in Manila, I had no illusions about them, but I was not looking for no trouble. I am heavyweight champion of the Sea Girl, and before you make any wisecracks about the non-importance of that title, I want you to come down to the forecastle and look over Mushy Hansen and One-Round Grannigan and Flat-Face O'Toole and Swede Hjonning and the rest of the man-killers that make up the Sea Girl's crew. But for all that, no one can never accuse me of being quarrelsome, and so instead of following my natural instinct and knocking seven or eight of these bezarks for a row, just to be ornery, I avoided them and went to the nearest American bar.
After a while I found myself in a dance hall, and while it is kind of hazy just how I got there, I assure you I had not no great amount of liquor under my belt--some beer, a few whiskeys, a little brandy, and maybe a slug of wine for a chaser like. No, I was the perfect chevalier in all my actions, as was proven when I found myself dancing with the prettiest girl I have yet to see in Manila or elsewhere. She had red lips and black hair, and oh, what a face!
"Say, miss," said I, the soul of politeness, "where have you been all my life?"
"Oooh, la!" said she, with a silvery ripple of laughter. "You Americans say such theengs. Oooh, so huge and strong you are, senyor!"
I let her feel of my biceps, and she give squeals of surprise and pleasure, clapping her little white hands just like a child what has found a new pretty.
"Oooh! You could just snatch little me oop and walk away weeth me, couldn't you, senyor?"
"You needn't not be afraid," said I, kindly. "I am the soul of politeness around frails, and never pull no rough stuff. I have never soaked a woman in my life, not even that dame in Suez that throwed a knife at me. Baby, has anybody ever give you a hint about what knockouts your eyes is?"
"Ah, go 'long," said she, coyly--"Ouch!"
"Did somebody step on your foot?" I ask, looking about for somebody to crown.
"Yes--let's sit theese one out, senyor. Where did you learn to dance?"
"It comes natural, I reckon," I admitted modestly. "I never knew I could till now. This is the first time I ever tried."
From the foregoing you will see that I am carrying on a quiet conversation, not starting nothing with nobody. It is not my fault, what happened.
Me and this girl, whose name is Raquel La Costa, her being Spanish that way, are sitting peacefully at a table and I am just beginning to get started good telling her how her eyes are like dark pools of night (pretty hot, that one; I got it offa Mushy Hansen, who is all poetical like), when I notice her looking over my shoulder at somebody. This irritates me slightly, but I ignore it, and having forgotten what I was saying, my mind being slightly hazy for some reason, I continue:
"Listen, cutey--hey, who are you winkin' at? Oh, somethin' in your eye, you say? All right, as I was sayin', we got a feller named Hansen on board the Sea Girl what writes po'try. Listen to this:
"Oh, the road to glory lay
Over old Manila Bay.
Where the Irish whipped the Spanish
On a sultry summer day."
At this moment some bezark came barging up to our table and, ignoring me, leaned over and leered engagingly at my girl.
"Let's shake a hoof, baby," said this skate, whom I recognized instantly as Bat Slade, champion box fighter of the Dauntless.
Miss La Costa said nothing, and I arose and shoved Slade back from the table.
"The lady is engaged at present, stupid," says I, poking my jaw out. "If you got any business, you better 'tend to it."
"Don't get gay with me, Costigan," says he, nastily. "Since when is dames choosin' gorillas instead of humans?"
By this time quite a crowd had formed, and I restrained my natural indignation and said, "Listen, bird, take that map outa my line uh vision before I bust it."
Bat is a handsome galoot who has a way with the dames, and I knew if he danced one dance with my girl he would figure out some way to do me dirt. I did not see any more of the Dauntless men; on the other hand, I was the only one of the Sea Girl's crew in the joint.
"Suppose we let the lady choose between us," said Bat. Can you beat that for nerve? Him butting in that way and then giving himself equal rights with me. That was too much. With a bellow, I started my left from the hip, but somehow he wasn't there--the shifty crook! I miss by a yard, and he slams me with a left to the nose that knocks me over a chair.
My brain instantly cleared, and I realized that I had been slightly lit. I arose with an irritated roar, but before hostilities could be renewed, Miss La Costa stepped between us.
"Zut," said she, tapping us with her fan. "Zut! What is theese? Am I a common girl to be so insult' by two great tramps who make fight over me in public? Bah! Eef you wanta fight, go out in ze woods or some place where no one make scandal, and wham each other all you want. May ze best man win! I will not be fight over in public, no sir!"
AND WITH THAT she turned back and walked away. At the same time, up came an oily-looking fellow, rubbing his hands together. I mistrust a bird what goes around rubbing his hands together like he was in a state of perpetual self-satisfaction.
"Now, now, boys," said this bezark, "le's do this right! You boys wanta fight. Tut! Tut! Too bad, too bad! But if you gotta fight, le's do it right, that's what I say! Let fellers live together in peace and enmity if they can, but if they gotta fight, let it be did right!"
"Gi' me leeway--and I'll do this blankety-blank right," says I, fairly shaking with rage. It always irritates me to be hit on the nose without a return and in front of ladies.
"Oh, will you?" said Bat, putting up his mitts. "Let's see you get goin', you--"
"Now, now, boys," said the oily bird, "le's do this right! Costigan, will you and Slade fight for me in my club?"
"Anywheres!" I roar. "Bare-knuckles, gloves, or marlin-spikes!"
"Fine," says the oily bird, rubbing his hands worse than ever. "Ah, fine! Ah--um--ah, Costigan, will you fight Slade in the pit of the serpent?"
Now, I should have noticed that he didn't ask Slade if he'd fight, and I saw Slade grin quietly, but I was too crazy with rage to think straight.
"I'll fight him in the pit of Hades with the devil for a referee!" I roared. "Bring on your fight club--ring, deck, or whatever! Let's get goin'."
"That's the way to talk!" says the oily bird. "Come on."
He turned around and started for the exit, and me and Slade and a few more followed him. Had I of thought, I would have seen right off that this was all working too smooth to have happened impromptu, as it were. But I was still seething with rage and in no shape to think properly.
Howthesomever, I did give a few thoughts as to the chances I had against Slade. As for size, I had the advantage. I'm six feet, and Slade is two inches shorter; I am also a few pounds heavier but not enough to make much difference, us being heavyweights that way. But Slade, I knew, was the shiftiest, trickiest leather-slinger in the whole merchant marine. I had never met him for the simple reason that no match-maker in any port would stage a bout between a Sea Girl man and a Dauntless tramp, since that night in Singapore when the bout between Slade and One-Round Grannigan started a free-for-all that plumb wrecked the Wharfside A. C. Slade knocked Grannigan out that night, and Grannigan was then champion slugger aboard the Sea Girl. Later, I beat Grannigan.
As for dope, you couldn't tell much, as usual. I'd won a decision over Boatswain Hagney, the champion of the British Asiatic naval fleet, who'd knocked Slade out in Hong Kong, but on the other hand, Slade had knocked out Mike Leary of the Blue Whale, who'd given me a terrible beating at Bombay.
These cogitations was interrupted at that minute by the oily bird. We had come out of the joint and was standing on the curb. Several autos was parked there, and the crowd piled into them. The oily bird motioned me to get in one, and I done so.
Next, we was speeding through the streets, where the lights was beginning to glow, and I asked no questions, even when we left the business section behind and then went right on through the suburbs and out on a road which didn't appear to be used very much. I said nothing, however.
AT LAST WE stopped at a large building some distance outside the city, which looked more like an ex-palace than anything else. All the crowd alighted, and I done likewise, though I was completely mystified. There was no other houses near, trees grew dense on all sides, the house itself was dark and gloomy-looking. All together I did not like the looks of things but would not let on, with Bat Slade gazing at me in his supercilious way. Anyway, I thought, they are not intending to assassinate me because Slade ain't that crooked, though he would stop at nothing else.
We went up the walk, lined on each side by tropical trees, and into the house. There the oily bird struck a light and we went down in the basement. This was a large, roomy affair, with a concrete floor, and in the center was a pit about seven feet deep, and about ten by eight in dimensions. I did not pay no great attention to it at that time, but I did later, I want to tell you.
"Say," I says, "I'm in no mood for foolishness. What you bring me away out here for? Where's your arena?"
"This here's it," said the oily bird.
"Huh! Where's the ring? Where do we fight?"
"Down in there," says the oily bird, pointing at the pit.
"What!" I yell. "What are you tryin' to hand me?"
"Aw, pipe down," interrupted Bat Slade. "Didn't you agree to fight me in the serpent pit? Stop grouchin' and get your duds off."
"All right," I says, plumb burned up by this deal. "I don't know what you're tryin' to put over, but lemme get that handsome map in front of my right and that's all I want!"
"Grahhh!" snarled Slade, and started toward the other end of the pit. He had a couple of yeggs with him as handlers. Shows his caliber, how he always knows some thug; no matter how crooked the crowd may be, he's never without acquaintances. I looked around and recognized a pickpocket I used to know in Cuba, and asked him to handle me. He said he would, though, he added, they wasn't much a handler could do under the circumstances.
"What kind of a deal have I got into?" I asked him as I stripped. "What kind of a joint is this?"
"This house used to be owned by a crazy Spaniard with more mazuma than brains," said the dip, helping me undress. "He yearned for bull fightin' and the like, and he thought up a brand new one. He rigged up this pit and had his servants go out and bring in all kinds of snakes. He'd put two snakes in the pit and let 'em fight till they killed each other."
"What! I got to fight in a snake den?"
"Aw, don't worry. They ain't been no snakes in there for years. The Spaniard got killed, and the old place went to ruin. They held cock fights here and a few years ago the fellow that's stagin' this bout got the idea of buyin' the house and stagin' grudge fights."
"How's he make any money? I didn't see nobody buyin' tickets, and they ain't more'n thirty or forty here."
"Aw, he didn't have no time to work it up. He'll make his money bettin'. He never picks a loser! And he always referees himself. He knows your ship sails tomorrow, and he didn't have no time for ballyhooin'. This fight club is just for a select few who is too sated or too vicious to enjoy a ordinary legitimate prize fight. They ain't but a few in the know--all this is illegal, of course--just a few sports which don't mind payin' for their pleasure. The night Slade fought Sailor Handler they was forty-five men here, each payin' a hundred and twenty-five dollars for admission. Figure it out for yourself."
"Has Slade fought here before?" I ask, beginning to see a light.
"Sure. He's the champion of the pit. Only last month he knocked out Sailor Handler in nine rounds."
Gerusha! And only a few months ago me and the Sailor--who stood six-four and weighed two-twenty--had done everything but knife each other in a twenty-round draw.
"Ho! So that's the way it is," said I. "Slade deliberately come and started trouble with me, knowin' I wouldn't get a square deal here, him bein' the favorite and--"
"No," said the dip, "I don't think so. He just fell for that Spanish frail. Had they been any malice aforethought, word would have circulated among the wealthy sports of the town. As it is, the fellow that owns the joint is throwin' the party free of charge. He didn't have time to work it up. Figure it out--he ain't losing nothin'. Here's two tough sailors wanting to fight a grudge fight--willin' to fight for nothin'. It costs him nothin' to stage the riot. It's a great boost for his club, and he'll win plenty on bets."
The confidence with which the dip said that last gave me cold shivers.
"And who will he bet on?" I asked.
"Slade, of course. Ain't he the pit champion?"
While I was considering this cheering piece of information, Bat Slade yelled at me from the other end of the pit:
"Hey, you blankey dash-dot-blank, ain't you ready yet?"
He was in his socks, shoes and underpants, and no gloves on his hands.
"Where's the gloves?" I asked. "Ain't we goin' to tape our hands?"
"They ain't no gloves," said Slade, with a satisfied grin. "This little riot is goin' to be a bare-knuckle affair. Don't you know the rules of the pit?"
"You see, Costigan," says the oily bird, kinda nervous, "in the fights we put on here, the fighters don't wear no gloves--regular he-man grudge stuff, see?"
"Aw, get goin'!" the crowd began to bellow, having paid nothing to get in and wanting their money's worth. "Lessee some action! What do you think this is? Start somethin'!"
"Shut up!" I ordered, cowing them with one menacing look. "What kind of a deal am I getting here, anyhow?"
"Didn't you agree to fight Slade in the serpent pit?"
"Yes but--"
"Tryin' to back out," said Slade nastily, as usual. "That's like you Sea Girl tramps, you--"
"Blank, exclamation point, and asterisk!" I roared, tearing off my undershirt and bounding into the pit. "Get down in here you blank-blank semicolon, and I'll make you look like the last rose of summer, you--"
Slade hopped down into the pit at the other end, and the crowd began to fight for places at the edge. It was a cinch that some of them was not going to get to see all of it. The sides of the pit were hard and rough, and the floor was the same way, like you'd expect a pit in a concrete floor to be. Of course they was no stools or anything.
"Now then," says the oily bird, "this is a finish fight between Steve Costigan of the Sea Girl, weight one-eighty-eight, and Battling Slade, one-seventy-nine, of the Dauntless, bare-knuckle champion of the Philippine Islands, in as far as he's proved it in this here pit. They will fight three-minute rounds, one minute rest, no limit to the number of rounds. There will be no decision. They will fight till one of 'em goes out. Referee, me.
"The rules is, nothing barred except hittin' below the belt--in the way of punches, I mean. Break when I say so, and hit on the breakaway if you wanta. Seconds will kindly refrain from hittin' the other man with the water bucket. Ready?"
"A hundred I lay you like a rug", says Slade.
"I see you and raise you a hundred," I snarl.
The crowd began to yell and curse, the timekeeper hit a piece of iron with a six-shooter stock, and the riot was on.
NOW, UNDERSTAND, THIS was a very different fight from any I ever engaged in. It combined the viciousness of a rough-and-tumble with that of a legitimate ring bout. No room for any footwork, concrete to land on if you went down, the uncertain flare of the lights which was hung on the ceiling over us, and the feeling of being crowded for space, to say nothing of thinking about all the snakes which had fought there. Ugh! And me hating snakes that way.
I had figured that I'd have the advantage, being heavier and stronger. Slade couldn't use his shifty footwork to keep out of my way. I'd pin him in a corner and smash him like a cat does a rat. But the bout hadn't been on two seconds before I saw I was all wrong. Slade was just an overgrown Young Griffo. His footwork was second to his ducking and slipping. He had fought in the pit before, and had found that kind of fighting just suited to his peculiar style. He shifted on his feet just enough to keep weaving, while he let my punches go under his arms, around his neck, over his head or across his shoulder.
At the sound of the gong I'd stepped forward, crouching, with both hands going in the only way I knew.
Slade took my left on his shoulder, my right on his elbow, and, blip-blip! his left landed twice to my face. Now I want to tell you that a blow from a bare fist is much different than a blow from a glove, and while less stunning, is more of a punisher in its way. Still, I was used to being hit with bare knuckles, and I kept boring in. I swung a left to the ribs that made Slade grunt, and missed a right in the same direction.
This was the beginning of a cruel, bruising fight with no favor. I felt like a wild animal, when I had time to feel anything but Slade's left, battling down there in the pit, with a ring of yelling, distorted faces leering down at us. The oily bird, referee, leaned over the edge at the risk of falling on top of us, and when we clinched he would yell, "Break, you blank-blanks!" and prod us with a cane. He would dance around the edge of the pit trying to keep in prodding distance, and cussing when the crowd got in his way, which was all the time. There was no room in the pit for him; wasn't scarcely room enough for us.
Following that left I landed, Slade tied me up in a clinch, stamped on my instep, thumbed me in the eye, and swished a right to my chin on the breakaway. Slightly infuriated at this treatment, I curled my lip back and sank a left to the wrist in his midriff. He showed no signs at all of liking this, and retaliated with a left to the body and a right to the side of the head. Then he settled down to work.
He ducked a right and came in close, pounding my waist line with short jolts. When, in desperation, I clinched, he shot a right uppercut between my arms that set me back on my heels. And while I was off balance he threw all his weight against me and scraped me against the wall, which procedure removed a large area of hide from my shoulder. With a roar, I tore loose and threw him the full length of the pit, but, charging after him, he side-stepped somehow and I crashed against the pit wall, head-first. Wham! I was on the floor, with seventeen million stars flashing before me, and the oily bird was counting as fast as he could, "Onetwothreefourfive--"
I bounded up again, not hurt but slightly dizzy. Wham, wham, wham! Bat came slugging in to finish me. I swished loose a right that was labeled T.N.T., but he ducked.
"Look out, Bat! That bird's dangerous!" yelled the oily bird in fright.
"So am I!" snarled Bat, cutting my lip with a straight left and weaving away from my right counter. He whipped a right to the wind that made me grunt, flashed two lefts to my already battered face, and somehow missed with a venomous right. All the time, get me, I was swinging fast and heavy, but it was like hitting at a ghost. Bat had maneuvered me into a corner, where I couldn't get set or defend myself. When I drew back for a punch, my elbow hit the wall. Finally I wrapped both arms around my jaw and plunged forward, breaking through Slade's barrage by sheer weight. As we came together, I threw my arms about him and together we crashed to the floor.
Slade, being the quicker that way, was the first up, and hit me with a roundhouse left to the side of the head while I was still on one knee.
"Foul!" yells some of the crowd.
"Shut up!" bellowed the oily bird. "I'm refereein' this bout!"
As I found my feet, Slade was right on me and we traded rights. Just then the gong sounded. I went back to my end of the pit and sat down on the floor, leaning my back against the wall. The dip peered over the edge.
"Anything I can do?" said he.
"Yeah," said I, "knock the daylights out of the blank-blank that's pretendin' to referee this bout."
Meanwhile the aforesaid blank-blank shoved his snoot over the other end of the pit, and shouted anxiously, "Slade, you reckon you can take him in a couple more rounds?"
"Sure," said Bat. "Double your bets; triple 'em. I'll lay him in the next round."
"You'd better!" admonished this fair-minded referee.
"How can he get anybody to bet with him?" I asked.
"Oh," says the dip, handing me down a sponge to wipe off the blood, "some fellers will bet on anything. For instance, I just laid ten smackers on you, myself."
"That I'll win?"
"Naw; that you'll last five rounds."
AT THIS MOMENT the gong sounded and I rushed for the other end of the pit, with the worthy intention of effacing Slade from the face of the earth. But, as usual, I underestimated the force of my rush and the length of the pit. There didn't seem to be room enough for Slade to get out of my way, but he solved this problem by dropping on his knees, and allowing me to fall over him, which I did.
"Foul!" yelled the dip. "He went down without bein' hit!"
"Foul my eye!" squawked the oily bird. "A blind man could tell he slipped, accidental."
We arose at the same time, me none the better for my fiasco. Slade took my left over his shoulder and hooked a left to the body. He followed this with a straight right to the mouth and a left hook to the side of the head. I clinched and clubbed him with my right to the ribs until the referee prodded us apart.
Again Slade managed to get me into a corner. You see, he was used to the dimensions whereas I, accustomed to a regular ring, kept forgetting about the size of the blasted pit. It seemed like with every movement I bumped my hip or shoulder or scraped my arms against the rough cement of the walls. To date, Slade hadn't a mark to show he'd been in a fight, except for the bruise on his ribs. What with his thumbing and his straight lefts, both my eyes were in a fair way to close, my lips were cut, and I was bunged up generally, but was not otherwise badly hurt.
I fought my way out of the corner, and the gong found us slugging toe to toe in the center of the pit, where I had the pleasure of staggering Bat with a left to the temple. Not an awful lot of action in that round; mostly clinching.
The third started like a whirlwind. At the tap of the gong Slade bounded from his end and was in mine before I could get up. He slammed me with a left and right that shook me clean to my toes, and ducked my left. He also ducked a couple of rights, and then rammed a left to my wind which bent me double. No doubt--this baby could hit!
I came up with a left swing to the head, and in a wild mix-up took four right and left hooks to land my right to the ribs. Slade grunted and tried to back-heel me, failing which he lowered his head and butted me in the belly, kicked me on the shin, and would have did more, likely, only I halted the proceedings temporarily by swinging an overhand right to the back of his neck which took the steam out of him for a minute.
We clinched, and I never saw a critter short of a octopus which could appear to have so many arms when clinching. He always managed to not only tie me up and render me helpless for the time being, but to stamp on my insteps, thumb me in the eye and pound the back of my neck with the edge of his hand. Add to this the fact that he frequently shoved me against the wall, and you can get a idea what kind of a bezark I was fighting. My superior weight and bulk did not have no advantage. What was needed was skill and speed, and the fact that Bat was somewhat smaller than me was an advantage to him.
Still, I was managing to hand out some I punishment. Near the end of that round Bat had a beautiful black eye and some more bruises on his ribs. Then it happened. I had plunged after him, swinging; he sidestepped out of the corner, and the next instant was left-jabbing me to death while I floundered along the wall trying to get set for a smash.
I swished a right to his body, and while I didn't think it landed solid, he staggered and dropped his hands slightly. I straightened out of my defensive crouch and cocked my right, and, simultaneous, I realized I had been took. Slade had tricked me. The minute I raised by chin in this careless manner, he beat me to the punch with a right that smashed my head back against the wall, laying open the scalp. Dazed and only partly conscious of what was going on I rebounded right into Slade, ramming my jaw flush into his left. Zam! At the same instant I hooked a trip-hammer right under his heart, and we hit the floor together.
Zowie! I could hear the yelling and cursing as if from a great distance, and the lights on the ceiling high above seemed dancing in a thick fog. All I knew was that I had to get back on my feet as quick as I could.
"One--two--three--four," the oily bird was counting over the both of us, "five--Bat, you blank-blank, get up!--Six--seven--Bat, blast it, get your feet under you!--eight--Juan, hit that gong! What kind of a timekeeper are you?"
"The round ain't over yet!" yelled the dip, seeing I had begun to get my legs under me.
"Who's refereein' this?" roared the oily bird, jerking out a .45. "Juan, hit that gong!--Nine!"
Juan hit the gong and Bat's seconds hopped down into the pit and dragged him to his end, where they started working over him. I crawled back to mine. Splash! The dip emptied a bucket of water over me. That freshened me up a lot.
"How you comin'?" he asked.
"Great!" said I, still dizzy. "I'll lay this bird like a rug in the next round! For honor and the love of a dame! 'Oh, the road to glory lay--'"
"I've seen 'em knocked even more cuckoo," said the dip, tearing off a cud of tobacco.
THE FOURTH! SLADE came up weakened, but with fire in his eye. I was all right, but my legs wouldn't work like they should. Slade was in far better condition. Seeing this, or probably feeling that he was weakening, he threw caution to the winds and rushed in to slug with me.
The crowd went crazy. Left-right-left-right! I was taking four to one, but mine carried the most steam. It couldn't last long at this rate.
The oily bird was yelling advice and dashing about the pit's edge like a lunatic. We went into a clinch, and he leaned over to prod us apart as usual. He leaned far over, and I don't know if he slipped or somebody shoved him. Anyway, he crashed down on top of us just as we broke and started slugging. He fell between us, stopped somebody's right with his chin, and flopped, face down--through for the night!
By mutual consent, Bat and me suspended hostilities, grabbed the fallen referee by his neck and the slack of his pants, and hove him up into the crowd. Then, without a word, we began again. The end was in sight.
Bat suddenly broke and backed away. I followed, swinging with both hands. Now I saw the wall was at his back. Ha! He couldn't duck now! I shot my right straight for his face. He dropped to his knees. Wham! My fist just cleared the top of his skull and crashed against the concrete wall.
I heard the bones shatter and a dark tide of agony surged up my arm, which dropped helpless at my side. Slade was up and springing for me, but the torture I was in made me forget all about him. I was nauseated, done up--out on my feet, if you get what I mean. He swung his left with everything he had--my foot slipped in some blood on the floor--his left landed high on the side of my skull instead of my jaw. I went down, but I heard him squawk and looked up to see him dancing and wringing his left hand.
The knockdown had cleared my brain somewhat. My hand was numb and not hurting so much, and I realized that Bat had broke his left hand on my skull like many a man has did. Fair enough! I came surging up, and Bat, with the light of desperation in his eyes, rushed in wide open, staking everything on one right swing.
I stepped inside it, sank my left to the wrist in his midriff, and brought the same hand up to his jaw. He staggered, his arms fell, and I swung my left flush to the button with everything I had behind it. Bat hit the floor.
About eight men shoved their snoots over the edge and started counting, the oily bird being still out. They wasn't all counting together, so somehow I managed to prop myself up against the wall, not wanting to make no mistake, until the last man had said "ten!" Then everything began to whirl, and I flopped down on top of Slade and went out like a candle.
LET'S PASS OVER the immediate events. I don't remember much about them anyhow. I slept until the middle of the next afternoon, and I know the only thing that dragged me out of the bed where the dip had dumped me was the knowledge that the Sea Girl sailed that night and that Raquel La Costa probably would be waiting for the victor--me.
Outside the joint where I first met her, who should I come upon but Bat Slade!
"Huh!" says I, giving him the once over. "Are you able to be out?"
"You ain't no beauty yourself," he retorted.
I admit it. My right was in a sling, both eyes was black, and I was generally cut and bruised. Still, Slade had no right to give himself airs. His left was all bandaged, he too had a black eye, and moreover his features was about as battered as mine. I hope it hurt him as much to move as it did me. But he had the edge on me in one way--he hadn't rubbed as much hide off against the walls.
"Where's that two hundred we bet?" I snarled.
"Heh, heh!" sneered he. "Try and get it! They told me I wasn't counted out officially. The referee didn't count me out. You didn't whip me."
"Let the money go, you dirty, yellow crook," I snarled, "but I whipped you, and I can prove it by thirty men. What you doin' here, anyway?"
"I come to see my girl."
"Your girl? What was we fightin' about last night?"
"Just because you had the sap's luck to knock me stiff don't mean Raquel chooses you," he answered savagely. "This time, she names the man she likes, see? And when she does, I want you to get out!"
"All right," I snarled. "I whipped you fair and can prove it. Come in here; she'll get a chance to choose between us, and if she don't pick the best man, why, I can whip you all over again. Come on, you--"
Saying no more, we kicked the door open and went on in. We swept the interior with a eagle glance, and then sighted Raquel sitting at a table, leaning on her elbows and gazing soulfully into the eyes of a handsome bird in the uniform of a Spanish naval officer.
We barged across the room and come to a halt at her table. She glanced up in some surprise, but she could not have been blamed had she failed to recognize us.
"Raquel," said I, "we went forth and fought for your fair hand just like you said. As might be expected, I won. Still, this incomprehensible bezark thinks that you might still have some lurkin' fondness for him, and he requires to hear from your own rosy lips that you love another--meanin' me, of course. Say the word and I toss him out. My ship sails tonight, and I got a lot to say to you."
"Santa Maria!" said Raquel. "What ees theese? What kind of a bizness is theese, you two tramps coming looking like theese and talking gibberish? Am I to blame eef two great tramps go pound each other's maps, ha? What ees that to me?"
"But you said--" I began, completely at sea, "you said, go fight and the best man--"
"I say, may the best man win! Bah! Did I geeve any promise? What do I care about Yankee tramps what make the fist-fight? Bah! Go home and beefsteak the eye. You insult me, talking to me in public with the punch' nose and bung' up face."
"Then you don't love either of us?" said Bat.
"Me love two gorillas? Bah! Here is my man--Don Jose y Balsa Santa Maria Gonzales."
She then gave a screech, for at that moment Bat and me hit Don Jose y Balsa Santa Maria Gonzales simultaneous, him with the right and me with the left. And then, turning our backs on the dumfounded Raquel, we linked arms and, stepping over the fallen lover, strode haughtily to the door and vanished from her life.
"AND THAT," SAID I, as we leaned upon the bar to which we had made our mutual and unspoke agreement, "ends our romance, and the glory road leads only to disappointment and hokum."
"Women," said Bat gloomily, "are the bunk."
"Listen," said I, remembering something, "how about that two hundred you owe me?"
"What for?"
"For knockin' you cold."
"Steve," said Bat, laying his hand on my shoulder in brotherly fashion, "you know I been intendin' to pay you that all along. After all, Steve, we are seamen together, and we have just been did dirt by a woman of another race. We are both American sailors, even if you are a harp, and we got to stand by each other. Let bygones be bygones, says I. The fortunes of war, you know. We fought a fair, clean fight, and you was lucky enough to win. Let's have one more drink and then part in peace an' amity."
"You ain't holdin' no grudge account of me layin' you out?" I asked, suspiciously.
"Steve," said Bat, waxing oratorical, "all men is brothers, and the fact that you was lucky enough to crown me don't alter my admiration and affection. Tomorrow we will be sailin' the high seas, many miles apart. Let our thoughts of each other be gentle and fraternal. Let us forgit old feuds and old differences. Let this be the dawn of a new age of brotherly affection and square dealin'."
"And how about my two hundred?"
"Steve, you know I am always broke at the end of my shore leave. I give you my word I'll pay you them two hundred smackers. Ain't the word of a comrade enough? Now le's drink to our future friendship and the amicable relations of the crews of our respective ships. Steve, here's my hand! Let this here shake be a symbol of our friendship. May no women ever come between us again! Good-bye, Steve! Good luck! Good luck!"
And so saying, we shook and turned away. That is, I turned and then whirled back as quick as I could--just in time to duck the right swing he'd started the minute my back was turned, and to knock him cold with a bottle I snatched off the bar.
THE END

The Mysterious Mummy

This time its "The Mysterious Mummy" by the creator of Fu Manchu, Sax Rohmer.

It was about five o'clock on a hot August afternoon, that a tall, thin man, wearing a weedy beard, and made conspicious by an ill-fitting frock-coat and an almost napless silk hat, walked into the entrance hall of the Great Portland Square Museum. He carried no stick, and, looking about him, as though unfamiliar with the building, he ultimately mounted the principal staircase, walking with a pronounced stoop, and at intervals coughing with a hollow sound.
His gaunt figure attracted the attention of several people, among them the attendant in the Egyptain room. Hardened though he was to the eccentric in humanity, the man who hung so eagerly over the mummies of departed kings and coughed so frequently, nevertheless secured his instant attention. Visitors of the regulation type were rapidly thinning out, so that the gaunt man, during the whole of the time he remained in the room, was kept under close surveillance by the vigilant official. Seeing him go in the direction of the stairs, the attendant supposed the strange visitor to be about to leave the Museum. But that he did not immediately do so was shown by subsequent testimony.
The day's business being concluded, the staff of police who patrol nightly the Great Square Museum duly filed into the building. A man is placed in each room, it being his duty to examine thoroughly every nook and cranny; having done which, all doors of communication are closed, the officer on guard in one room being unable to leave his post or to enter another. Every hour the inspector, a sergeant, and a fireman make a round of the entire building: from which it will be seen that a person having designs on any of the numerous treasures of the place would require more than average ingenuity to bring his plans to a successful issue.
In recording this very singular case, the only incident of the night to demand attention is that of the mummy in the Etruscan room.
Persons familiar with the Great Portland Square Museum will know that certain of the tombs in the Etruscan room are used as receptacles for Egyptian mummies that have, for various reasons, never been put upon exhibition. Anyone who has peered under the partially raised lid of a huge sarcophagus and found within the rigid form of a mummy, will appreciate the feelings of the man on night duty amid surroundings so lugubrious. The electric light, it should be mentioned, is not extinguished until the various apartments have been examined, and its extinction immediately precedes the locking of the door.
The constable in the Etruscan room glanced into the various sarcophagi and cast the rays of his bull's-eye lantern into the shadows of the great stone tombs. Satisfied that no one lurked there, he mounted the steps leading up to the Roman gallery, turning out the lights in the room below from the switch at the top. The light was still burning on the ground floor, and the sergeant had not yet arrived with the keys. It was whilst the man stood awaiting his coming that a singular thing occurred.
From somewhere within the darkened chamber beneath, there came the sound of a hollow cough!
By no means deficient in courage, the constable went down the steps in three bounds, his lantern throwing discs of light on stately statues and gloomy tombs. The sound was not repeated:
and having nothing to guide him to its source, he commenced a second methodical search of the sarcophagi, as offering the most likely hiding places. When all save one had been examined, the constable began to believe that the coughing had existed only in his imagination. It was upon casting the rays of his bull's-eye into the last sarcophagus that he experienced a sudden sensation of fear. It was empty; yet he distinctly remembered, from his previous examination, that a mummy had lain there!
At the moment of making this weird discovery, he realised that he would have done better, before commencing his search for the man with the cough, first to turn on the light; for it must be remembered that he had extinguished the electric lamps. Determined to do so before pursuing his investigations further, he ran up the steps—to find the Roman gallery in darkness. The bright disc of a lantern was approaching from the upper end, and the man ran forward.
'Who turned off the lights here?' came the voice of the sergeant.
'That's what I want to know! Somebody did it while I was downstairs!' said the constable, and gave a hurried account of the mysterious coughing and the missing mummy.
'How long has there been a mummy in this tomb?' asked the sergeant.
'There was one there a month back, but they took it upstairs. They may have brought it down again last week though, or it may have been a fresh one. You see, the other lot were on duty up to last night.'
This was quite true, as the sergeant was aware. Three bodies of picked men share the night duties at the Great Portland Square Museum, and those on duty upon this particular occasion had not been in the place during the previous two weeks.
'Very strange!' muttered the sergeant; and a moment later his whistle was sounding.
From all over the building men came running, for none of the doors had yet been locked.
'There seems to be someone concealed in the Museum: search all the rooms again!' was the brief order.
The constables disappeared, and the sergeant, accompanied by the inspector, went down to examine the Etruscan room. Nothing was found there; nor were any of the other searchers more successful. There was no trace anywhere of a man in hiding. Beyond leaving open the door between the Roman gallery and the steps of the Etruscan room, no more could be done in the matter. The gallery communicates with the entrance hall, where the inspector, together with the sergeant and fireman, spends the night, and the idea of the former was to keep in touch with the scene of these singular happenings. His action was perfectly natural; but these precautions were subsequently proved to be absolutely useless.
The night passed without any disturbing event, and the mystery of the vanishing mummy and the ghostly cough seemed likely to remain a mystery. The night-police filed out in the early morning, and the inspector, with the sergeant, returned, as soon as possible, to the Museum, to make further inquiries concerning the missing occupant of the sarcophagus.
'A mummy in the end tomb!' exclaimed the curator of Etruscan antiquities; 'my dear sir, there has been no mummy there for nearly a month!'
'But my man states that he saw one there last night!' declared the inspector.
The curator looked puzzled. Turning to an attendant, he said: 'Who was in charge of the Etruscan room immediately before six last night?'
'I was, sir!'
'Were there any visitors?'
'No one came in between five-forty and six.'
'And before that?'
'I was away at tea, sir!'
'Who was in charge then?'
'Mr Robins.'
'Call Robins.'
The commissionaire in question arrived.
'How long were you in the Etruscan room last night?'
'About half-an-hour, sir.'
'Are you sure that no one concealed himself?'
The man looked startled. 'Well, sir,' he said hesitatingly, 'I'm sorry I didn't report it before; but when Mr Barton called me, at about twenty-five minutes to six, there was someone there, a gent in a seedy frock-coat and a high hat, and I don't remember seeing him come out.'
'Did you search the room?'
'Yes, sir; but there was no one to be seen!'
'You should have reported the matter at once. I must see Barton.'
Barton, the head attendant, remembered speaking to Robins at the top of the steps leading to the Etruscan room. He saw no one come out, but it was just possible for a person to have done so and yet be seen by neither himself nor Robins.
'Let three of you thoroughly overhaul the room for any sign of a man having hidden there,' directed the curator briskly.
He turned to the sergeant and inspector with a smile, 'I rather fancy it will prove to be a mare's nest!' he said. 'We have had these mysteries before.'
The words had but just left his lips when a Museum official, a well-known antiquarian expert, ran up in a perfect frenzy of excitement. 'Good heavens, Peters!' he gasped. 'The Rienzi Vase has gone!'
'What!' came an incredulous chorus.
'The circular top of the case has been completely cut out and ingeniously replaced, and a plausible imitation of the vase substituted!'
They waited for no more, but hurried upstairs to the Vase room, which, in the Great Portland Square Museum, is really only a part of the Egyptian room. The Rienzi Vase, though no larger than an ordinary breakfast-cup, all the world knows to be of fabulous value. It seemed inconceivable that anyone could have stolen it. Yet there, in the midst of a knot of excited officials, stood the empty case, whilst the imitation antique was being passed from hand to hand.
Never before nor since has such a scene been witnessed in the Museum. The staff, to a man, had lost their wits. What is to be done? was the general inquiry. In less than half an hour the doors would have to be opened to the public, and the absence of the famous vase would inevitably be noticed. It was at this juncture, and whilst everyone was speaking at once, that one of the party, standing close to a wall-cabinet, suddenly held up a warning finger. 'Hush!' he said; 'listen!'
A sudden silence fell upon the room so that people running about in other apartments could be plainly heard. And presently, from somewhere behind the glass doors surrounding the place, came a low moan, electrifying the already excited listeners. The keys were promptly forthcoming and then was made the second astounding discovery of the eventful morning.
A man, gagged and bound, was imprisoned behind a great mummy case!
Eager hands set to work to release him, and restoratives were applied, as he seemed to be in a very weak condition. He was but partially dressed, and breathed heavily through his nose, like a man in a drunken slumber. All waited breathlessly for his return to consciousness; for certainly he, if anyone, should be in a position to furnish some clue to the deep mystery. On regaining his senses, he had disappointingly little to tell. He was Constable Smith, who had been on night-duty in the Egyptian room. Sometime during the first hour, and not long after the alarm in the basement, he had been mysteriously pinioned as he paraded the apartment. He caught no glimpse of his opponent, who held him from behind in such a manner that he was totally unable to defend himself. Some sweet-smelling drug had been applied to his nostrils, and he remembered no more until regaining consciousness in the mummy case! That was the whole of his testimony. In setting out the particulars of this remarkable affair, a third and final discovery must be noted. The three men who had been directed to examine the Etruscan room brought to light a bundle of old garments, containing an ancient opera-hat, a faded frock-coat, a pair of shiny trousers, and a pair of elastic-sided boots. They were wedged high up at the back of a tall statue, where they had evidently escaped the eyes of all previous searchers. That constituted the entire data on which investigations had to be based. The Egyptain room was closed indefinitely, 'for repairs.' No further useful evidence could be obtained from anyone. Several witnesses furnished consistent descriptions of the shabby stranger with the hollow cough; but it may here be mentioned that no one of them ever set eyes upon him again. The inspector, the sergeant, and the fireman solemnly swore to having visited the Egyptian room at the end of each hour throughout the night, and to having found the constable on duty as usual! Smith swore, with equal solemnity, that he had been drugged during the first hour and subsequently confined in the mummy case.
The matter was carefully kept out of the papers, although the Museum, throughout many following days, positively bristled with detectives. As the second week drew to a close and the Egyptian room still remained locked, well-informed persons began to whisper that a scandal could no longer be avoided. There can be no doubt that, in many quarters, Constable Smith's share in the proceedings was regarded with grave suspicion. It was at this critical juncture, when it seemed inevitable that the loss of the world-famous Rienzi Vase must be made known to an unsympathetic public, that certain high authorities gave out that the vase had been removed, and that none of the night staff were in any way implicated in its disappearance!
On this announcement being made, several strange theories were mooted. Some stated that the vase had never left the Museum! Others averred that it had been pawned to a foreign government!
Whatever the real explanation, and the secret was jealously guarded by the highly-placed officials who alone knew the truth, suffice it that the Egyptian room was again thrown open and the Rienzi Vase shown to be reposing in its usual position.
Now that it again stands in its place for all to see, there can be no objection to my relating how I once held the famous Reinzi Vase in my possession for twelve days. If there be any objection. . .
I am sorry. You must understand that I am no common thief—no footpad: I am a person of keenly observant character, and my business is to detect vital weaknesses in great institutions and to charge a moderately high fee for my services. Thus I discovered that a certain famous tiara in a French museum was inadequately protected, and accordingly removed it, replacing it by a substitute. The authorities refused me my fee, and all the world knows that my clever forgery was detected by the experts. That brought them to their senses; it is the genuine tiara that reposes in their cabinet now!
In the same way I removed a world-renowned, historical mummy from its resting place in Cairo, and two days later they grew suspicious of my imitation—it was the handiwork of a clever Birmingham artist—and the department was closed. The bulky character of the mummy nearly brought about my downfall, and it was only by abandoning it that I succeeded in leaving Cairo. I am not proud of that case; I was clumsy. But of the case of the Rienzi Vase I have every reason to be highly proud. That you may judge of the neatness and dispatch with which I acted, I will relate how the whole business was conducted.
You must know, then, that the first flaw I discovered in the arrangements at the Great Portland Square Museum was this: the wall-cases were badly guarded. I learnt this interesting fact one afternoon as I strolled about the Egyptian room. A certain gentleman—I will not name him—was showing a party of ladies round the apartment. He had unlocked a wall-case, and was standing with a handsome bead-necklet in his hand, explaining where and when it was found. He was only a few yards away, but with his back toward the case. Enough! The key, with others attached, was in the glass door. You will admit that this was exceedingly careless; but the presence of four charming American ladies . . . one can excuse him!
I regret to have to confess that I was somewhat awkward—the keys rattled. The whole party looked in my direction. But the immaculate man-about-town, with his cultivated manner and his very considerable knowledge of Egyptology—how should they suspect? I apologised; I had brushed against them in passing; I made myself agreeable, and the uncomfortable incident was forgotten, by them—not by me. I had a beautiful wax impression to keep my memory fresh!
The scheme formed then. I knew that a body of picked police promenaded the Museum at night, and that each of the rooms was usually in charge of the same man. I learnt, later, that there were three bodies of men, so that the same police were in the Museum but one week in every three. I made the acquaintance of seven constables and frequented eight different public-houses before I met the man of whom I was in search.
The first policeman I found, who paraded the Egyptian room at night, was short and thick-set, and I gave him up as a bad job. I learnt from him, however, who was to occupy the post during the coming week, and presently I unearthed the private bar which this latter officer, his name was Smith, used. Eureka! He was tall and thin. Incidentally, he was also surly. But the winning ways of the jovial master-plumber, who was so free with his money, ultimately thawed him.
Every night throughout the rest of the week I spent in this constable's company, studying his somewhat colourless personality. Then, one afternoon, I entered the Museum. My weedy beard, my gaunt expression, and my hollow cough—they were all in the part! I went up to the Egyptian room to assure myself that a certain mummy case had not been removed, and having found it to occupy its usual place, I descended to the Etruscan basement.
For half-an-hour I occupied myself there, but the commissionaire never budged from his seat. I knew that this particular man was only in temporary charge whilst another was at tea, for I was well posted, and wondered if his companion were ever coming back. Luckily, an incident occurred to serve my purpose. The chief attendant appeared at the head of the steps. 'Robins!' he called.
Robins ran briskly upstairs at his command, and then—in fifteen seconds my transformation was complete. Gone were the weedy grey beard and moustache—gone the seedy, black garments and the elastic-sided boots—gone the old opera-hat—and, behold, I was Constable Smith, attired in mummy wrappings!
An acrobatic spring, and the bundle of aged garments was wedged behind a tall statue, where nothing but a most minute search could reveal it. Down again, not a second to spare! Into the empty sarcophagus at the further end of the room; and, lastly, a hideous rubber mask slipped over the ruddy features of Constable Smith and attached behind the ears, my arms stiffened and my hands concealed in the wrappings, and I was a long-dead mummy—with a neat leather case hidden beneath my arched back!.Brisk work, I assure you; but one grows accustomed to it in time. The commissionaire entered the room very shortly afterwards. He had not seen me go out, but, as I expected, neither was he absolutely sure that I had not done so. He peered about suspiciously, but I did not mind. The real ordeal came a couple of hours later, when a police officer flashed his lantern into all the tombs.
For a moment my heart seemed to cease beating as the light shone on my rubber countenance.
But he was satisfied, this stupid policeman, and I heard his footsteps retreating to the door. I allowed him time to get to the top, and extinguished the light in the Etruscan room, and then. . . I was out of my tomb and hidden in the little niche immediately beside the foot of the stairs. I coughed loudly. Heavens! He came back down the steps with such velocity that he was carried halfway along the room. He began to flash his lantern into the tombs again; but, before he had examined the first of them, I was upstairs in the Roman gallery!
Without the electric light it was quite dark in the Etruscan room, which is in the basement; but, being a bright night, I knew I could find what I required in the Roman gallery without the aid of artificial light; besides, I had not to act in the open—someone might arrive too soon. So, thoroughly well posted as to the situation of the switches, I extinguished the lamps, and dodged in among the Roman stonework to the foot of a great pillar, towering almost to the lofty roof and surmounted by an ornate capital.
I had planned all this beforehand, you see; but I must confess it was an awful scramble to the top. I had only just curled up on the summit, the handle of my invaluable leather-case held fast in my teeth, when a sergeant came running down the gallery, almost into the arms of the constable who was running up the steps from the Etruscan room.
A moment's hurried conversation, and then the lights turned on and the sound of a whistle. It was foolish, of course; but I had expected it. From all over the building the police arrived, and, fatigued as I was with my climb, yet another acrobatic feat was before me.
The top of my pillar was no great distance from the stone balustrade of the first-floor landing, on which the Egyptian room opens, and a narrow ledge, perhaps of eleven inches, runs all round the wall of the Roman gallery some four feet below the ceiling. I cautiously stepped from the pillar to the ledge—I was invisible from the other end of the place—and, pressing my body close against the wall, reached the balustrade. Before Constable Smith—who had left his post and descended to the lower gallery on hearing the sergeant's whistle—re-entered the Egyptian room, my bright, new key had found the lock of a certain cabinet, and I was secure behind a mummy case—whilst a little steel pin prevented the spring of the lock from shutting me in.
Poor Constable Smith! I was sorry to have to act so: but, ten minutes after the closing of the doors of communication, I came on him from behind, having silently crept from the case as he passed me, and followed him down the darkened room, the thin linen wrappings that covered my feet making no sound upon the wooden floor. I had a pad ready in my hand, saturated with the contents of a small phial that had reposed in my mummy garments.
I thrust my knee in his spine and seized his hands by a trick which you may learn for a peseta any day in the purlieus of Tangier. A muscular man, he tried hard to cope with his unseen opponent; but the pad never left his mouth and nostrils, and the few muffled cries that escaped him were luckily unheard. He soon became unconscious, and I had to work hard lest the inspector should make his round before I was ready for him. The mummy case had to be lowered on to the floor, and the heavy body tightly bound and lifted into it, then stood up again and securely locked behind the glass doors. It was hot work, and I had but just accomplished the task and climbed into the constable's uniform, when the inspector's key sounded in the door. Ah! it is an exciting profession!.The rest was easy. Wrapped up in my yellow mummy linen were the various appliances I required, and in the leather box was the imitation Rienzi Vase. The circular glass top of the case gave some trouble. So hard and thick was it that I had to desist five times and conceal my tools, owing to the hourly visits of the inspector. Poor Constable Smith began to groan toward six o'clock, and a second dose of medicine was necessary to keep him quiet for another hour or so.
I filed out with the other police in the morning, the Rienzi Vase inside my helmet. As to the sequel, it is brief. Of course the detectives tried their hands at the affair; but, pooh! I am too old a bird to leave 'clues'! It is only amateurs that do that!
My fee, and the conditions to be observed in paying it, I conveyed to the authorities privately.
They thought they had a 'clue' then, and delayed another week. They actually detained my unhappy agent, a most guileless and upright person, who knew positively nothing. Oh! it was too funny! But, realising that only by the vase being returned to its place could a scandal be avoided—they met me in the matter.